maria: kaley. >> yeah, jessica, kaley mcgee white with the wash p ton examiner. i'm -- washington examiner. i'm curious to hear your thoughts that repealing section 230 or changing it in some way would have an effect on free speech. the current situation isn't great for free speech either. >> i think that's right. so just to pars the issues out. i think the government pressuring companies to moderate in a certain way, take this down, leave this up, is totally unacceptable. hopefully there will be great oversight this year. the problem with getting rid of section 230 of course is that companies will be incentivized to do one of two things, leave everything up which sounds good until you realize how much pornography, violence, scamming and just general garbage will be there. no one will want to spend time online or take almost everything down that could ever possibly be controversial to anyone because they don't want to have to

litigate all of those concerns. this is a veri very litigious country. maria: these are important arguments to discuss. jessica, thank you. kaley, mike, adam, stay right there. the next hour of "mornings with maria" begins right now. and good wednesday morning, everybody. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is wednesday, februa february 22nd. it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. president biden set to meet with a group of nine eastern natoal a lies this morning on the the -- allies on the final day of his european trip. yesterday the president promised to seek justice for russia's war crimes. watch. >> together we made sure reqrussias is paying the price r its a abuses. we continue to maintain the largest sanctions on any country in history. and we're going to announce more sanctions this week together with our partners. we'll hold accountable those who

are responsible for this war and we'll seek justice for the war crimes and crimes against humanity continuing to be committed by the russians. maria: i spoke with hermitage capital ceo bill browder in the last hour. hear's what he said. >> we should seize the frozen $350 billion of assets the that are currently in our custody, these are russian assets, russian central bank assets. that money should be diverted, seized and cont to sent to ukrao they could support themselves militarily and financially. maria: the wall street journal says xi jinping will visit moscow in the coming months for a summit with vladimir putin. joining me for the hot topics all morning long is kaley mcgee white, mike baker and adam johnson. kaley, your thoughts? >> i think we continue to push the envelope here in this situation. i couldn't have a problem with us supporting ukraine. biden getting on the world stage and accusing putin of war crimes

and saying we will personally hold him accountable, again, we are push being the envelope here many it's important to keep m mind we are not at war with russian. we're apparently fighting a problems hey war on ukraine's behalf. we have not declared war. there's a fine line here and i think that biden administration needs to be careful moving forward. maria: the journal writes today, putin buries nuclear arms control. he announced yesterday that they're not going to re-up on the stark treaty, adam. >> if you don't necessarily want to re-up on the treat hey, if you don't necessarily want boots on the ground, if you don't feesly want to send f-16s, et cetera, the one thing you can do is say we're going to push for war crimes. i wonder if that's what he's trying to do here. to show this is unacceptal, we're going to stand on the war in kyiv, we'll push for war crimes. maria: they didn't allow any inspectors to inspect the

nuclear buildup anyway. >> the state department pointed it out that the russians were not aabiding by the regulations of the new stark treaty so my problem with all of this, with the ukraine conflict, is i'm not confident that the current administration, the biden administration has a strategy, right. joe biden going over to europe and standing there and saying we will be here for as long as it takes, right, as that's not a strategy. that's a sound bite. right. and so i think the american people need be treated more respectfully. we come out of 20 years in afghanistan, right. the administration needs to explain not why we're there, necessarily. everybody intuitively understands putin's' awful. started this thing. we get that. we need to know where it's going. even if they're still confused, they need to get out there and be proactive and explain to the american public what this means. are they just writing a blank check for the long-term? i mean, because how long is

that? maria: especially since we've already committed $113 billion in money to ukraine. all of that hasn't even been allocated there yet. and then there are places like ohio which is desperate for help right now, people are worried they're getting cancer. >> absolutely. it's a stark reminder when you have a mayor of a small town, like east palestine, saying i'm furious that when we're facing this sort of catastrophe, the u.s. president is over in poland handing out all this money. again, we understand why intuitively. but every time there's an incident in america and this happens, it's going to become a stark reality for the administration that there is this contrast. >> and you raise a very valid point and the lesson, the take-away, not just from this administration but previous administrations is you need to have a president who is on the ground. i mentioned earlier, whether that was ronald reagan at the berlin war, tear it down, whether bill clinton if 1995 at the mud slides in california, whether it should have been this president on the border and in

ohio and at least he got ukraine right. yo.i would rather see a presidet of either party but the u.s. president showing leadership, especially after the way we bungled afghanistan. i would rather see that than not see that. maria: he hasn't even confronted xi jinping on china's provocations. >> which he needs to do. maria: it's three years since covid arrived in this country and we still don't know the origins and joe biden won't raise the issue with xi jinping in the five times he's spoken with him. >> it's a little ironic that we're okay with going after putin because of what's going on in ukraine and you're right, with china we're not even calling them an adversary. we're calling them a competitor. maria: that's right. >> and acting like things are fine and dandy with the u.s., china relationship. he's inconsistent on a lot of these issues and that's not necessarily great for u.s. leadership on the world stage. >> china's perspective, they're at war with us. i don't mean we're lobbing missiles at each other.

maria: it's a soft war. >> it's a soft war in a lot of different ways. we need to be more pragmatic about what our relationships is with china. we should make no mistake. china should be our number one focus. we can't take our eye off the ball, despite the conditions in ukraine. maria: much more ahead. home sales down for a 112th month in a -- 1 1 1 12th month a row. mortgage rates continue to rise. home prices showing no signs of falling significantly. i'll ask the wall street journal panel their thoughts on the housing market. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. stay with us. ♪ freedom, what did you hope to learn about here. ♪ this would all fall apart. ♪ where were you when we started this game.

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street, top investors watching yyour money. joining me i now is ryan payne and add a dam johnson. i want to ask your thoughts on this housing collapse that we are talking about. mortgage rates now at 6.62% this morning, of course that's way down from the highs but it's also still a double from where we were a year ago. january existing home sales down for a 12th month in a row yesterday. the lowest rate since october 2010, down better than 30%. we have new home sales out this friday. what's your take on housing right now? >> well, it makes sense if rates go up the number of homes sold would obviously decline. what's interesting is that while we've had 12 months as you just mentioned, maria, of falling home sales we only had five months of falling home prices because there is a lag. obviously it takes time for prices to fall and catch up. there's a silver lining, however, to all of this. you hate to see the value of your home fall because it makes

you feel less rich, assuming you felt rich in the first place but the silver lining is that housing is 30% of inflation. cpi. so as home prices come down, inflation by definition will come down. but again, there's a lag. it's taking time. maria: i'm just wondering if housing is already in recession. i mean, when you look at the fact that sales were down 36.9% in january. that is a whopping number. >> huge. it's staggering. also, remember the comp where last year we were still kind of thinking there would be another variant so there was demand to get out of the city so to look at a year over year comp, i think it's a little bit misleading and that will start to fade as we move past covid. maria: i'm trying to figure out the consumer right now, brian. i mean, look at the retail earnings. we're waiting tjx earnings today, out before the bell. yesterday, home depot reporting a miss on revenue, they had bad guidance, same store sales also bad. it shaved 150 points a off the

dow, stock was down 7% on the session. walmart said its same store sales were up 8.3% but its guidance for the quarter and the year also below expectations and that stock had a volatile session yesterday, ended actually it was up at the end of the day. your thoughts on retail? ?>> i think home depots is getting the hangover after the party, talking about home sales are down so people aren't moving as much, do it yourselfers, all the projects from the pandemic are probably done at this point so they don't have a lot of levers they can pull. walmart sells groceries. right now we have a consumer spending more on groceries, spending on travel and that consumer spending number last week was amazing. there's no he denying the consumer's spending right now. you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. despite high inflation, i said this week after week, the consumer really isn't falling off the cliff here and it has to go back to wages. wages are saying strong.

if you look at consumers going through the pandemic stimulus, jamie dimon talks a lot about that, what offsets that is the fact that, hey, my wages are going up,ism going to spend more money. i think that's going to save the economy. maria: it's a good point you mentioned. one of the issues for home he depot was the fact that it had to take on all of this new cost because they had to give people raises. and they had to, you know, answer the call of employ he ease who want -- employees who wanted more in terms of benefits. is that wage issue a problem for corporate earnings this year? >> oh, 100%. and as a small business owner i'm feeling that pain as well. no pun intended when i said pain. i think a billion dollars you have to spend in actual wages this year, an increase. i think that's a problem for most companies. offsetting that, you have supply chains that are starting to normalize, lumber costs are down 50 of%, oil prices are down significantly from last year so i don't think inflation is going back to 2% like the fed wishes and dreams. i think they'll change their

target eventually. but i do think that's going to keep the economy running is the fact that wage growth is going to stay strong because we have a labor shore damage that's not going away. that's going to be a problem for every company moving forward. >> by the way, corporate margins have fallen for six quarters in a he row, largely because of the labor costs. as the supply chains have normalized, that's helped but the wages have kept going up and that's what's pressuring margins. maria: your thoughts on the recession this year, yes or no? >> no. no.>> amen. maria: he's been saying no for a long time. >> ryan and i we might be the two optimists left standing. i keep coming back to the two es or earnings and employment. as a long as you have the most number of people ever making the highest gross adjusted income ever, spending the most amount of money ever, awfully hard for me to see how we have a recession. i think that's earnings have proved better than feared. they weren't great but they weren't bad. maria: there's a lot of he debate about the january jobs number u know they that.

i want to see what february shows to see if some of that -- because we had one guest on yesterday who didn't believe the numbers at all in terms of january. i know there was seasonality. he was trying to, you know, come up with this idea that there was something funky about those numbers. >> if it's not 500,000, if it's 300,000, it's a huge number and we still have for every two job -- every job available there's -- two jobs available, one person looking. that's the lowest ever in history. it's he crazy. maria: it was louie nevaliey yesterday. >> he's really savvy. >> maybe he should watch us today to see the real news. maria: thanks so much for joining us. coming up, china he cozies up to russia as the two countries vie to disrupt the world order. christian whiton is here to tell us what that could mean for the us, that's next. more retail earnings on the way, after disappointments this week, tjx out in a few moments. we'll take a look at the retail

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maria: welcome back. china's top diplomat meeting with vladimir putin in moss today ahead of marking one year since russia's invasion of ukraine many this as xi jinping prepares for a summit with putin in the next couple months. u.s. warning they that china may send military aid to russia. china is dismissing that, accusing the united states of fanning the flames and pro profiteering off the war. joining us now, christian whiton. good to see you. thanks so much for being here. what are your thoughts on this partnership between china and russia? no surprise that china is now considering sending military aid even though they're pushing back on that. >> yeah, it's not a huge surprise but certainly a very grave development. if you look presidents of both parties what thing they tried to

do do is keep apart china and russia. this goes back to the nixon outreach to china after our loss in vietnam and the the successful division he created between china and russia and presidents have seen the need to prevent a condominium of power in eurasia that's against the united states. what a big change has happened in the last year. you remember, a lot of analysts were saying that china was opposed to russia's war, china might actually be with us, might help us with sanctions. they actually benefit from this war in many ways. they're learning a lot about using low tech warfare like drones, cyber warfare and helping to assemble with themselves in the senior position an axis that's against the united states. maria: unfortunately, why wouldn't they do what they want? there have been no repercussions on communist china from this administration whatsoever, provocation after provocation. wisconsin congressman, chairman of the house select committee on china mike gallagher wheat an wn

op-ed m the wall street journal today. he writes this, when we think about how to deter the chinese communist party, it's useful to think about how you deal with a bully by goating your friends together and standing up. christian, the u.s. has not been standing up to china, have they? >> no, we haven't. again, successive administrations more recently have talked about a pivot to asia or rebalancing but that hasn't actually happened. if you look at the amount of military power we have in the western pacific, it declines each year. we've been very distracted, obviously there's a lot of he focus now on ukraine and previous decades such a focus on counter the insurgency and middle east back waters and the traditional things you need in the pacific, ships and planes, have decreased in number out there. it's great that the gallagher committee, i know you had mike here with some frequency, is finally starting to address this in thousand but what we really need -- in they the house but what we really need from president biden is a china strategy. he said he was going to develop one. he said it would be out within

the first few months, the first year of his administration. it hasn't happened. maria: it hasn't. the way they're dealing with the rest of the world similar to what they do to their own people as well, we've got another disappearance of a business person. chinese billionaire and chairman of china renaissance, bou fan has gone missing. he was working to move some of his fortune and set up a family office in singapore in the months prior to this disappearance but he went missing earlier this month. china renaissance says it has not been able to contact him had, christian. this we know that comes just, what, a year or so after jack ma was disappeared. i'm with mike gallagher -- i'm sorry, i'm with mike baker today. mike, you were at the cia. you've seen stories like this before. another disappearance of somebody who, you know, xi jinping doesn't like the way he does his business. >> no, there's no rule of law in china at this point. and people shouldn't -- u.s. business has always sort of

viewed china as a holy grail and continue to kind of look the other way even with xi's behavior. but christian, i did have one question for you. i know that the idea of china providing lethal aid now to russia is kind of captured the headlines president from your perspective, do you think that there may be some incentive here here, a greater incentive for xi to step in and play the role of peace maker? >> yes, i think that is a big thing. the arms are important. china's going to be importing a whole lot more natural gas from russia and by being an exporter of arms that will retain its senior position in partnership but the idea that china not the united states could play the pivotal role, this is something where joe biden has been remiss an ideal time, it's always hard to get in peace negotiations when you're doing well on the battle fieldfield but ukraine sd

have been pushed to do that. you have a russian winter offensive and the tides may be turning against ukraine. so the ability of china to step up ahead of other countries that tried to do so, france tried to do so, would really put them in a different position and at the pinnacle of that china, russia, ran, sort of -- iran, sort anti-free world country axis that's coming together. maria: corporate america is also part of the problem. they want to sell to 1.4 billion people china and they don't necessarily focus on the national security threat that is china. is jp morgan cutting staff now in china? what do you know about this? >> that is -- there is a report that they are cutting back, which especially in hong kong, which really calls into question this idea that china's reopening will be economic magic not just for china but for the west. there seems to be a quiet recognition that the rule of law in hong kong, hong kong as an

iend indepindependent quasi freo do business. anyone that stood up to the promises china made, the bigger chinese economy, jp morgan, that would be a little bit like jamie dimon disa appearing here. there's a lot of big corporate names in china, a lot of lenders have lent money so the opacity of the economy and its continued turbulence shouldn't be underestimated. unfortunately, wall street seems not to get that message. maria: it's an important message. i'm glad you're talking about it. any western company a that thinks they're going to get better treatment than their own firms where seeing disappearancing should think again. christian, it's good to see you.

thanks so much. christian whiton joining us. >> thank you, maria. maria: we'll see you soon, christian. we'll be right back. stay with us. get help reaching your goals with j.p. morgan wealth plan, a new tool in the chase mobile® app.

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maria: welcome back. tjx earnings crossing the tape. let's get to cheryl with the numbers. cheryl: this could have been a real boom for the company. the a look at the stock, the street is liking what they're seeing. first off, earnings per share, 89-cents, in line with estimates, the revenue was a beat, 14.52 billion, the street was looking for 14.07 billion. the stock is moving higher now. the stock buyback, they've announced that as well, about a $2 billion stock buyback. they're also announcing a dividend increase, excuse me, of 13%. remember, tj companies is a he global company. market cap of $91 billion. the company actually-they own home goods, they own marshalls, i love me a little marshalls,

they own t.j. maxx, you know that as well. the guidance, they're reiterating profit margin targets, target of 10.6%. the fiscal year ending for '24, they say comp sales will be up about 2%. as far as the guidance for the year, it's actually somewhat strong. it seems to be a piece of what's happening here. people are going for discounts, american consumers are going for discounts. we heard that from walmart in particular when it came of of groceries. comp sales of marmax, 7%. the numbers are decent for t.j. maxx, maria. i'll send it back to you to move on. but again, this quarterly dividend increase of 13%, that's going to be 33.25 centss. overall, this is a decent report. the bargain stores may be the bright spot in the retail sector, maria. that's what we're looking for here. looks like so far, from what i'm

seeing, we've got it. maria: and that's good analysis because that's what you would expect in an economy where consumers are getting squeezed, right? i mean, walmart, you know, not a great guidance yesterday and yet the stock finishes up on the session. tjx, this morning you're saying it's another indication of those bargain stores having a leg up in this environment. cheryl: yeah, we've seen companies like burlington, like ross, these are the companies that are performing right now when a lot of the major retailers, the major names, macy's, have not been performing and walmart sorry i was correct in my assessment yesterday. a lot of times i'm doing this quickly. it was the grocery segment for walmart, higher end consumers are going to walmart for their groceries. things have changed for the consumer. maria: thanks, cheryl. mexican officials moving to ban imports of genetically modified white corn. leaving u.s. farmers struggling to find solutions. fox business' madison alworth is

here with the story. >> they were not expecting a move like this for another year. so to say this was shocking an understatement. mexico announced the ban of gmo white corn effective immediately, it shocked those within the industry like a fifth generation farmer. this video from the farm, he exports 30% of the white corn crop and typically mexico is the biggest buyer. corn is our large aest ag export and mexico our biggest buyers. the country for example purchasing $10.6 billion worth over the last two years. the decree immediately bans white gmo corn as i mentioned. it puts a hold on the decision around yellow gmo corn. the farmers say this move is clear, mexico wants to pull out from this trade agreement and that would hurt both countries. >> they still are kind of holding onto a pipedream of trying to eliminate all gmo corn. we're in a really precarious

situation right now. mexicos is such an important market. this could really ruin that for both sides. >> the national corn grower's association is hoping the u.s. trade representative, catherine ty, will defend u.s. trade policy and file a dispute case against mexico in the wake of their actions but for now the decree seems to be standing and white corn farmers feel they're left standing in the cold at the exact time of year when they start exporting to mexico. february. maria: madison, thank you l. joining us now to react, tennessee congressman, mark greene. thank you for being here. what's your reaction to this? >> well, it's a couple of things you have to consider on this situation. one, obviously mexico bullying the united states to get out of the u.s. mca. but you also have to kind of dig into corn subsidy that's been going on a very long time for t ethanol. that is a clear mistake and

we're spending way too much on that. so it's distorted the market and these farmers are the ones the that are left holding the corn, i guess you could say. so we need a strong president to negotiate with mexico which we don't have. and we need some realism in this whole ethanol business. maria: i mean, why isn't he negotiating with mexico? you would think that this is a clear partner to get the drug cartels out of the driver's seat, if you will. it's the dangerous drug cartels who are deciding who comes into america and who doesn't. they're making billions of dollars on the human smuggling and their drug trafficking. i know you're holding a home of land security hearing in mcallen, texas next month. the judiciary committee is holding a committee tomorrow at the arizona border but democrats are not going to attend. they say they were not given a heads up to prepare. they say they're going to boycott it. here's chairman jim jordan, what he said at the end of the last

hearing on february 1. watch this. >> we want to inform all members about a codell our committee will take to the border on february 22nd, 23rd, 24th, make the minority aware of that, this will make clear some of the real problems we see at our border and across the country. we want to make sure we get down to visit that area here later this month. maria: so he was very clear. he made sure the minority knew about it. and et yet they're saying they didn't have enough time to prepare, they're going to boycott the hearing. your reaction? >> well, i don't -- i'm not surprised by it, maria. but it just shows how totally unaware, they don't care about what's happening at the southern border, hundreds of thousands of americans have died to fentanyl. 1400 dead migrants due to these ridiculous policies. the democrats don't care. i mean, they simply don't care about securing the border and we're going actually this week with a border boot camp to take

all the newbies and we'll have a bill put together and we'll have our joint hearing down in mcallen texas, mid-march. our goal is to inform our members and put together some good legislation that hopefully we can get passed and bring some sanity to what's happening the the southern border. maria: well, what can you do about it, though? i mean, you're talking about more than 5 million illegals having been apprehended at the border on joe biden's watch. these are just the numbers we know about. let's just make they that clear. 5 plus million. 1 plus million got aways and obviously thousands and thousands of pounds of fentanyl seized. can you make a difference in terms of border policy? >> yeah, absolutely. there are some things that we can make happen. but two things we have to do. we have to inform the american people that this crisis is actually impacting every american and we'll do that in a hearing next week. and then we have to show it's

the failure of secretary mayorkas to get it done and hopefully by informing the american people, we could put pressure on the moderate democrats and they'll actually support some legislation at the southern border and i think once we show what's going on, they will get unelected very quickly if they don't take action. maria: i think mike baker, one of the reasons they don't want to go is because if they all go to the border, the cameras will follow. >> right. maria: and then it will be clear. customs and border patrol found three trailers at border check points holding close to a total of 100 migrants just in two days, this is just one small slice of what we hear about every day but we have pictures of it so border patrol chief says over the four day holiday weekend, president's day, agents a made nearly 18,000 arrests, four sex offenders, three gang members. the biden administration has a rule -- proposing a rule that allows agents to immediately deport illegal migrants if they don't take asylum in a country

already passed through. >> there's no political upside for the biden administration to the highlight or have the cameras follow them down to the border. there is none. once they show up, they've got to start answering questions. they can't just call what the republicans are doing some sort of photo op. he congressman, i was hoping to get your impression on the white house and their idea of changing the asylum plan and putting into place some something that would theoretically prohibit a number of the people coming in illegally for applying for you asylum. >> i think it's a bait and swap to be completely honest with you. the way the app they're using, it will be instant parole if you use the app. so everyone's just going to use the app. and this notion that they're going to be turning people back is a fallacy. everything that joe biden has donees has been to facilitate more people pouring into the country and those numbers that

maria mentioned, 4.7 million plus, 1.2, i mean, with he have 25 states m the country with populations less than 4.6 million people. i mean, it's insane. and all they're doing, everything they're doing whether it's the interim final rule on the judiciary side of it, is to speed people into the country. they're fundamentally changing the nature of america. maria: all right, congressman, we'll be watching your work. thank you very much for being here this morning. >> thanks, maria. maria: quick break and then how big media moves are changing the news industry, author steve krakauer is here, he has a new book on how certain news stories are not being covered, as you know. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. ♪

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maria: welcome back. we are talking about steve krakauer's new book, uncovered, how the media got cozy with power, abandoned its principles and lost the people. it spotlights issues in the

modern news industry and how certain stories can be distorted and censored completely. steve is a media insider with years of experience. he joins me now. steve, it's great to have you. >> great to be here. maria: in the book you talk about the shift in media, especially just in the last few years. >> yeah. maria: i want to know what happened. it's amazing to me because so much of what you write about, these are stories they that we all should agree on. >> right. right. maria: and yet we don't. >> no. and you're right, i mo mean, i s at cnn in 2013, less than 10 of years ago, not they that long ago. i think there's valid criticism of cnn from 2013 but it completely fundamentally changed in a new years after a that, by 2016, it was a shell of its former self. what happened? it's really a modern phenomenon what happened. there's several factors i lay out in my book. a couple are the business model completely changed. all of a sudden the old way of

doing thing would no longer keep your audience. i think the executives, journalists felt the that, a real panic and suddenly independent upstarts, suddenly places were impeding on their ground and drawing audience. that made them, nervous, panic. they start to clamp down, censor more, go against other viewpoints and try to push narratives over reality. so that's just one of them. i think social media and some of the other factors had a real play as well. maria: what about leadership? i was also at cnn before my time at cnbc. i was there when it was ted turner's cnn, an entrepreneur trying to do different things, this is 1989, 1990, and when you've got leadership and entrepreneur of ted turner, willing to push the envelope, he just wants truth. he just wants news day long versus 20 years later when you've got leadership that is talking about politics all the time. >> exactly.

and i think that we saw that shift. cnn used to be the news. it was like just big news happens, you turn it on, boring old cnn. that's just not the case anymore. all of a sudden now i think trump had a huge factor in this. i write quite a bit about trump in the book and the way that it was business on one level, that he was good for business and that led to bad decision making on the part of -- it's not just cnn but throughout the rest of corporate media and also personal, trump was friends with jeff zucker who ran cnn was at trump's wedding. it was personal, a turn coat to the elite class they thought he was part of. then all of a sudden you see a decline, bad decisions beget more bad digses, mistake -- decisions, mistakes never get corrected. that leads to a decline in trust from the american public.

maria: i don't think we heard an apology on the russia lie. it divided our country hugely. you never heard one of them say we had bad sources, we were wrong. the hunter biden laptop, same thing. have you heard a mea culpa. i think audiences would trust and appreciate it if you owned it and said my bad, i got that wrong. >> 100%. we see a total lack of introspection in had the press. i write about the stories, the steele dossier, the hunter biden laptop is the first chapter in the book. we talk about the lab leak theory, so many elements of covid were just pushed under the rug, reported incorrectly at the time or at least incuriously. at least show some curiosity. but instead, automatically gets attacked and i think it really is the press themselves distrust the public in a way and they have to clamp down on speech getting out there and i think -- maria: they think the public is stupid, you're right. you know what, i'm glad you mentioned covid. that's one of the things that i

was referring to. don't we all ahe agree a that a -- agree that a virus that killed a million americans needs to be investigated, how did this happen china won't allow it. okay, fine. no problem. on to the next thing, it must be natural. >> in the old days, the corporate press, this would be a huge story. this would be something that gets the entire newsroom excited about covering it because it actually matters. this is really important for the public. it's a great, juicy story to dig into, few and far between in the american media have been interested in it and you would think that would be something that's worth covering. maria: same with hunter biden's laptop many don't we all agree that influence peddling is bad and we don't want the commander in chief to have been taking in money that's going to compromise him from may decisions. you have an op-ed on fox news about the media's handling of the new york post's biden laptop story. what happened here? >> this one, again, i think it's the biggest example of this -- i call it the elite censorship

collusion racket between big tech companies, government agencies and the media in this case. and i write in the book, sometimes when you see media mistakes or media getting things wrong it's laziness, incompetence. this is not that. this one there was a real effort to suppress this and i have to say, it's one thing to suppress it, we saw it was october 2020, it was politics. but then there's still no effort to get the story right even though outlets like cnn or new york times have done reporting, confirming the laptop. never any effort to apologize for getting it wrong at first, correct it for the readers. instead, the washington post just last week was still pushing this through their fact checker column, covering for james clapper and that ridiculous letter he sent related to the laptop story. maria: all lies, now he's trying to walk it back. we know p clapper and brennan were driving the russia story as well. >> of course. maria: i like chapter nine, broken financial incentive structure. now, you say twitter has been a complete disaster for the media. i want you to tell us why.

>> multiple reasons. i think two big ones is that when journalists spend all their time on twitter which is so unlike the rest of the people of the country, just truly a bubble, that they get feedback mechanisms that a few hundred people say you did a great job, okay, i'm going to do more of that, 20, 30 people start yelling at you on twitter, oh, no, i need to pull back from that. it has a chilling effect. that's one main one. the other one, they acted like it's their diary. all these people that we knew were maybe maybe biased but the maybe doing good reporting and now you can see every thought on twitter. you see political biases and certain biases emerge and you have you new impression of them and it's hurting the journalist's credibility and the credibility of their outlets. new york times is doing some good journalism. every day they're undermined by lower level staffers that are

destroying the name of the new york times on twitter. on display for everybody. maria: they're all mad that elon musk decided to tell the truth. >> right. maria: about what happened and it's exposed them all. it is a must read, uncovered, pick it up. steve, congrats. >> thank you. maria: good to see you. steve krakauer. we'll be right back. been. your dedicated fidelity advisor can help you open those doors. they can help you create a retirement-income plan designed to balance growth and guaranteed income. and provide access to specialists who help with estate planning to look out for future generations so you're not just growing and protecting your wealth. you're sharing it. because doors were meant to be opened. great job, everybody!

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>> -- is, [cheering]. if you want to control -- your destiny stay home. don't vote. >> if i said anything other than everybody everywhere needs to vote i misspoke in heat of a campaign rally. >> "hot topic buzz" that was chicago mayor lori lightfoot playing damage control telecommunication voters do you not support her stay home don't vote a victory respectful calls shows lightfoot trailing behind paul ballast denying disability benefits to police officers recovering from are covid on job chicago heads to polls tuesday what are you expecting. >> for someone apparently wants to win reflex lorry lightfoot doesn't seem like they wants to second or third scandal thus far in campaign

another scandal earlier where she her campaign was working with union officials to try to get teachers to solicit for her campaign on her behalf, and it is funny now that she is also, sort of taken a churn against chicago teachers union pretend a to do out superhard we know was willing to let them shut down schools it is interesting to see how campaign is trying to pivot this on maria: also performance, right not just the scandal i don't know if you call crime spike of 70%, a scandal. >> disaster. maria: but on her watch. ryan: fact she would say if you are not going to vote for me say home ironic lightfoot would be heavy-handed. >> i see, the crime spike is look that is a consequence of your policy. maria: yeah. >> not a scandal, so i think it isps offensive what she said but, also, yo